A Spontaneous Explosion of Life
by PropheticMemory
Summary: "My name is Michael Yew, and I never expected to end up like this." Michael's story, beginning with his discovery of his parentage and following him through his adventures in Camp Half-Blood, making new friends and falling in love. Even though it's completely against his will. Jake/Michael, M/M, slash, eventual sex.
1. Chapter 1

For the longest time, I thought I had no purpose in life. I was just that awkward, ADHD riddled, dyslexic kid. And for the longest time, I was okay with that. It was who I was. All I was ever going to be. It was comfortable. Safe.

I can't say that I was happy- I don't think there's ever been a time when I was truly happy. But I was content, and it was enough for me.

But then he came. He appeared out of no-where, seeming from the shadows, and he led me away.

He told me that what I thought was safety was truly danger. What I thought was a mediocre existence was actually so much more. He told me that I had a purpose.

And I don't think that I can ever forgive him for that.

My name is Michael Yew and I never thought I'd end up like this.

* * *

Walking home in the dark was not something that I had to deal with often. I never had any reason to be out after dark. Rare an occurrence as it was, this particular cold, Winter's night saw me sent out to our closest store to pick up the milk that my mother had forgotten to buy on her way home from work. Headphones blocking out the noises of the world around me and bottle of milk dangling from my right hand, I made my way home.

I didn't live far from the store- ten, fifteen minutes at most. It shouldn't have been any hardship for me to get there and back without any incident.

But trouble always enjoyed screwing me over.

As I passed one of the many dimly lit, sinister seeming alleyways that were rare where I lived, a hand snapped out from the shadows, dragging me into the darkness.

I kept my cool. I didn't start flailing my arms outward in a desperate attempt to get that hand, that harsh, strong hand off of me.

And I certainly didn't panic.

"Gods, calm down!" a low voice hissed and for a moment I froze from his sheer stupidity.

"Shit. That was probably not the best thing to say." He muttered.

I tried to jerk my arm away from him, but he wasn't feeling particularly co-operative.

"Dammit, kid, I am not going to hurt you!" he said. I attempted to take a step away from him, only really succeeding in half-dragging him into the slight light cast from the nearest street lamp.

I froze for a completely different reason.

He had horns.

Holy motherfucking shit.

He had horns.

He shifted uncomfortably under my stare and something closer to the ground caught my eye.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me." I muttered in disbelief.

Horns? Fuck horns. This guy had goat legs.

He laughed nervously. "Nope. No joke, I'm afraid."

I tore my eyes away from his furry legs, forcing myself to look at his face.

I blinked at him in utter confusion.

"You're... You're a faun." I said cautiously, and I honestly could not believe that that sentence had just come out of my mouth.

The goat man huffed indignantly.

"I'm a satyr! SATYR! Fauns are Roman. And lazy as shit, too." he replied and even in my shocked state it was obvious that I'd offended him.

I idly toyed with the notion of apologising, but before I could I remembered that he had just dragged me into a dark alley.

Fuck this guy.

When it became clear to him that I had no intention of opening my mouth anytime soon, he sighed impatiently.

"Look, Mike-" "How do you know my name?" I snapped, attempting again to wrench my arm from his grasp.

"Because I know you! I know who you are! What you are!"

"What I am?" I asked. As much as I hated to admit it, he caught my curiosity.

"Yes. What you are. You're not exactly normal, kid." he said gently.

"I swear, if the next words out of your mouth are any variations of 'You're a wizard, Mike' I am going to kick your fuzzy ass SO hard." I growled.

...Huh. I'm not too great at dealing with the whole being kidnapped thing. I probably should be yelling for help around now.

The asshat actually laughed at me.

"That's too funny, dude. Nope, not a wizard. Sorry to disappoint you."  
"Apology accepted. Now let go of me." I gritted through my teeth, attempting to burn holes in his hand with my eyes.

"I can't do that until I know you'll listen to me! If I let you go, you're gonna run for it!" he said, readjusting his grip on my arm.

Of course I'm going to run away. I'm being held against my will in a dark alley by a strange goat man. You don't have to be Stephen Hawking to figure out the best course of action to take.

"I won't, I swear." I promised. I really hoped that he didn't see right through the blatant lie.

He looked at me suspiciously, calculating whether or not he could trust me to stay put.

He decided he could.

Obviously, he has very poor judgement.

As soon as his hand released my arm, I bolted. I was a fast runner under normal circumstances, but Quicksilver doesn't have shit on me when I'm running for a reason. I practically jumped around the corner and sprinted down the street, wanting to put as much distance between myself and that creep as humanly possible.

I reached my house within minutes, hopping the disgustingly stereotypical white picket fence and unlocking my front door.

"Mom? I'm home!" I called, closing and locking the door behind me. As safe as people want you to think upper class suburbia is, I wasn't taking any chances. Especially after that little incident.

"I'm in here, honey!" my mom called from the room to my right. I took a quick detour into the kitchen to deposit the milk in the fridge and collect my thoughts.

I knew I should tell her what happened. I knew I should. But my mom's one of those protective types. Y'know, that mom you see threatening to get her lawyer after that guy who accidentally walked into you.

Only it's been ten times worse since Annie was born.

I decided that I'd keep it to myself. I had no real reason to, but I just felt like I'd be better off if she didn't know.

I grabbed a glass from the cabinet and helped myself to the carton of apple juice on the counter before I made my way into the living room.

"Hey, Mike" my soon to be step-dad, Tom, greeted from the armchair. I nodded once in reply. My mom was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, my baby sister lying on the floor in front of her. I sat down on the other side of my sister and poked her stomach. She giggled happily and I smiled down at her. She was really quite cute when she wasn't crying. My mom laughed as Annie grabbed my hand, refusing to let it go.

"You were never that clingy!" she laughed, reaching out and ruffling my hair fondly.

My mom was young, she had only recently turned thirty. She shared my light green eyes, but her hair was curly and dark in comparison to my straight blonde.

She'd had me when she had just turned eighteen. She hadn't even finished high school. My grandmother raised me until I was five. My mom was determined to finish her education and go to college. She visited as often as she could, but as soon as I was old enough to realise what the situation was, I assumed that she didn't want to look after me. I thought she was going to college so she could get a job and have her own life while I stayed with gran. I was really surprised when gran brought me to her college graduation and she pulled me into a hug, asking was I looking forward to living with her.

Within a month she had a job in a big local company. I moved in with her a week later.

For years, it was just the two of us. My mom worked hard to support us, climbing up the work ladder until she became head of Human Resources. Then she met Tom.

Tom was a lawyer from an affiliated company. When my mom told me she wanted to introduce me to her new boyfriend, I wasn't expecting to like him. I definitely wasn't expecting him to like me. But a year later, my mom was pregnant with my little sister and the soon to be four of us moved into a large house in the suburbs. That was two years ago.

"You got the milk?" mom asked.

"Yeah. In the fridge." I replied, gently tugging my hand out of Annie's grasp. My mom stood up, picking Annie up with her and moved towards the large couch set against the wall. She sat down and relaxed into it, gesturing for me to come sit with her. I sank down into the cushions on the other end of the couch and accepted Annie as she handed her to me.

Annie gurgled happily and tugged at my bangs.

"She adores you." Mom said contentedly and Tom hummed in agreement.

I knew the feeling. I was never going to let anything hurt my sister.

Tom flicked the television on and we settled in to watch old reruns of 'Friends'.

The evening was so completely normal that I could almost forget that weird goat man- satyr who had dragged me into an alley.

Almost.

* * *

The next day proceeded as usual. I refused to get out of bed until mom pulled all of the covers off of me and dropped them on the floor, I went to school, struggled mildly with spelling in English class but wrote a poem that was good enough that Mrs. Harris didn't mind my atrocious spelling, ate lunch and displayed my general hatred of math by sleeping through the period.

It was only when I got home that things got weird.

I first noticed something was strange when I was walking towards my house- my mom's car was in the drive. Mom was never home this early. Annie's babysitter should have still been there.

I opened the front door, somewhat fearful of the reason why mom was home at this time.

"Mom?" I called, not bothering to hide the confusion from my voice.

"I'm in my study!" she called back, her voice tight. I hesitantly made my way towards the back of the house.

Walking into her study, I nearly fainted in shock at the sight of the man sitting in a chair in front of her desk.

A man with a small, scruffy beard growing on his chin. A man whose face was a little too familiar for comfort.

A man with small, pointy horns sticking out from his messy of curly black hair.

"You have got to be kidding me."

* * *

_Michael is an angry little thirteen year old._

_Frankly, I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. Or, more accurately, I know **exactly** where I'm going with this but I'm not entirely sure how to get there. The end-game pairing in this will be Jake Mason/Michael Yew. Peculiar, I know, but I've developed quite the fondness for this pairing. Stick with it, you might find that you like it. Realistically, Percy won't play all that much of a role in this. He'll be there, certainly, as I am intending to follow cannon with this. I place Mike at being a year or so older than Percy, and Michael goes to Camp Half-Blood a few months before Percy, around November._

_I can't think of anything else I need to clarify right now, except maybe that the satyr isn't Grover. Anything else, I'll clear up as I go along, but if you have any questions feel free to ask._

_For my headcannon Michael and Jake, see burdge-bug's beautiful art of them: burdge-bug .deviantart gallery/23757113?offset=24#/d2wea2a_

_-PropheticMemory_


	2. Chapter 2

Demigods. Greek Gods. Satyrs. Titans. Monsters.

They were all real.

I felt like my head was about to explode.

"Mike? You okay, kid?" the Satyr- mom called him Cedar- called.

I have no idea if I answered or just continued staring at the wall.

"Michael, honey-" my mom started, but I held up my hand to silence her. She'd just tell me something I don't want to hear.

I tried in vain to speak, but I couldn't force the words out. In lack of anything else to do I stood up slowly and walked towards the open door. I probably should have acknowledged them but I was beyond any coherent thought by now.

I headed straight for my room and collapsed onto my bed.

This is fucking ridiculous. I'm a Demigod. I'M a DEMIGOD.

...Bullshit. No way. Impossible. I was to... normal. Boring, dull, unexceptional. I wasn't particularly strong, or fast, or smart. I wasn't especially good at anything.

I let my head hit the wall with a satisfying 'thunk'. I could feel an upcoming migraine fighting for purchase in my mind, though there wasn't really room for it with all the thoughts swirling around.

"Mike?" my mom called from the other side of the door, light knocking sounding on the wooden frame.

I didn't answer, but that was hardly going to stop her. She opened my door slowly, almost as if she was worried that I was going to run for it, or just generally freak out and start throwing things. To be honest, I wish I had the mental strength for it.

Mom sat down on the bed next to me, half reaching towards me before hesitating. Mom knows me well. I was most certainly NOT in the mood for a hug.

"I know this is hard to get your head around" she said quietly, "but I have to know. Do you believe us?"

I nodded, then shook my head. Frankly, I had no idea.

My mom laughed lightly. "Yeah, I felt the same when your father told me who he was." I turned to look at her but something caught my eye.

My eyes must have widened comically as mom looked very concerned all of a sudden.

No, I wasn't exceptionally talented at anything. Except...

"Shit." I mumbled and it was a testimony to how she understood what I was feeling as she didn't even scold me for swearing.

I couldn't take my eyes away from the object propped up against the far wall. The symbol of a hobby that my mom had pushed me into when I moved in with her. A hobby in which I was surprisingly gifted, even when I first began. A hobby which I had come to adore over the years.

The sleek wooden bow leant on the wall elegantly as though it was taunting me.

"Apollo." I muttered, disbelieving. Mom smiled sadly.

"Your father." She said and I had to resist the urge to start hitting my head off the wall.

Of fucking course.

I was never into Greek mythology. I knew scattered bits and pieces, thanks to my mother, but the extent of my knowledge ended at the Olympians. But Apollo, when my mom had been telling me about them, back after I first started archery, she told me that he had been an archer.

I groaned, sinking further into the mattress and covering my face with my hands.

She reached out and put an arm around my shoulders, dragging me closer to her.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you." she said, brushing my hair out of my eyes.

I didn't really know what to say to that. Part of me wanted to hate her. She'd kept this secret from me for so long. This huge secret. But how do you tell your child that their father was a god? I understood why she had kept it from me, but it didn't make me any less angry.

I'd gone thirteen years without knowing who my father was. A fact that never really bothered me. I'd never had any sense of abandonment issues, and my mom had only been in highschool when she had me. It made sense that my father didn't hang around. But this...  
This was too much.

"Why now?" I croaked. I was fine without a father. You can't miss what you never had, after all. Besides, I doubted that there wasn't a reason for telling me. The goat man showed up out of no where, and mom was always a firm believer that everything happened for a reason.

The silence seemed to last forever, and when I finally looked at my mother I was shocked to see tears streaking down her pale face.  
"Mom?" I asked, trying not panic.

"It's... It's not safe here for you anymore."

I gulped. "What do you mean 'not safe'?" I asked, fighting to keep my voice steady.  
She hesitated. "Demigods... They have a lot of enemies. I kept you as safe as I could, but the way things are going... You have to go." she said and she sounded as broken up as I felt.

"Go where?" I prompted, though I immediately regretted it. I didn't want to know.

"To Camp Half-Blood." the satyr's voice echoed throughout my bedroom. He appeared in the doorway, looking awkward and pitying.  
"Camp what?" I snapped. This guy was pissing me off majorly. He had no right to come into my house, dump this massive fucking bombshell on me and make my mom cry.

"Camp Half-Blood. It's a camp in Long Island for Demigods. You'll be safe there. We'll train you, teach you to fight. You'll be with others like you." he said calmly.

I got the impression that this wasn't the first time he said this speech.

"And if I don't want to go?" I said, gritting my teeth.

"Demigods attract monsters. The fact that you've gone without being attacked this long is remarkable. But once you know the truth it makes you easier to find. Monsters are gonna start coming after you. And if they find you here.." He trailed off. He didn't need to finished.

If they found me here, my family would get hurt.

I turned my head to stare out my window. I thought of my mom. My poor, terrified mom who was holding me like she'd never let go. Tom, the guy who had no idea what he was getting into. Annie. The little sister who I'd do anything for. If I stayed here... If she got hurt...

I didn't really have a choice, did I?

"Fine." I said, not moving my gaze from the window. "I'll go."

He sighed in relief. I gathered that he wasn't all that fond of the idea of forcing me to co-operate.

"We'll leave as soon as you're packed." he said happily.

I froze. I wasn't expecting it to be so soon. I nodded reluctantly and I heard my mother stifle a sob beside me.

"Melissa..." Cedar's voice was quiet.

She nodded, pulling away from me and standing.

"You should pack." She muttered. "I'll see you before you go." She left my room almost immediately.

It hurt like hell, but I knew why she left. If she stayed, I never would have gone through with it.

Cedar began to list the things he thought I should bring with me. I followed his directions without really listening and soon, way too soon, I was finished.

"I'll be right back" I said, practically running out of my room. I entered the room at the end of the hall, where my baby sister slept peacefully. I carefully picked her up from her cot and held her close.  
"I have to go now, Annie, but I'll come back soon." I whispered to her.

She gurgled in her sleep. I placed her back into her cot and pulled her discarded blanket up to her little shoulders.

I hated Apollo for making me do this. Fighting back the tears that began to well up in my eyes, I made my way back to my room like I was walking towards the electric chair.  
Cedar was waiting for me, holding my bag in one hand and my bow in the other.

"You should take this." he said and I nodded absently.

Son of Apollo. Yeah, I guess I should have a bow.

We left my room in silence, Cedar seeming to understand my lack of willingness to talk.

Mom stood at the front door, looking calm and composed.

I pretended for both of our sakes that I didn't see right through the act.

She caught me in a bone crushing hug. "Be safe." She whispered.

I nodded mutely. I didn't have any idea what to say, but I knew I didn't have to say anything.

"If the monster activities die down in the area, you can come home after Summer." Cedar offered in what I assumed was meant to be a helpful manner.

The end of Summer was almost nine months away. I'd miss so much in that time. And that was best case scenario.

I nodded, defeated.

Neither my mother or I said goodbye. It would have felt too final. Cedar led me to where a black van was parked at the end of the drive. Cedar and I climbed into the van and as we drove away I refused to so much as glance back at my mother of the street that was home to me. As we made our way to this Camp Half-Blood, I found myself cursing the gods the whole way there.


End file.
